Posted on 12/09/2002 5:06:25 AM PST by vooch
It's not polite to gloat, but let me just say - I told you so. C-061 is Milan Babic. He decided to act brave and remove the protection, but alas - only the last day of his testimony, after hampering the cross-examination by closed sessions for days.
Though all transcripts are to become public now, we heard at the very end that the Trial Chamber is to deliberate whether to keep some of the investigation tapes secret after all. What is this? Those tapes are crucial (according to both Milosevic and Tapuskovic) in proving Babic guilty of perjury. Will the games never end?
Uertz-Retzlaff will have her additional half an hour on Monday, but that would be of no avail to the Prosecution - Milosevic practically ruined the witness and Tapuskovic probably gave the Tribunal all the necessary info to indict him.
In order to make up for all those days of closed sessions and covered identity, Milosevic had to squeeze all the issues in this one day and quickly recap everything with his questions.
He managed partly, by summing all up under few major allegations that the witness had made. The first one was that the situation in CRO wasn't so desperate in 1990 and the beginning of 1991, but that the Serbs themselves had made it that way, organizing provocations instigated by Milosevic.
To prove Babic wrong, Milosevic shortly described numerous examples of attacks on the unarmed Serb villages by the Croatian police, arrests and killings of civilians in towns, all happening months before any real fights, finishing each example with a rhetorical question 'So, the Serbian side is to be blamed for what happened?' The unfortunate Babic tried to escape in a similar way as the Albanian witnesses denied KLA activities: "I don't know those details", "I don't remember the specific details". But there were so many of these examples, one more gruesome than the other, many already publicly known, so Babic slowly changed his line: "I have been told about this case", "I heard that a large number of Serbs got killed".
Of course, Milosevic didn't miss the opportunity to mention again the case of the witness' extended family member killed, only now the names were not hidden and an ugly story came out: someone informed Babic about an intercepted radio communication of the Croatian police, preparing a raid on one village, aiming to kill the most distinguished villagers, and specifically Babic's family. When Babic with the Serbs from Knin arrived to that village, it was already too late: his house had been burned, his father-in-law Boza Skrbic killed; fortunately, his mother and mother-in-law managed to escape. This was too much for Babic, of course, and when asked again the same 'So, the Serbian side is to be blamed for what happened?' he fell silent for a while, then feebly said "I don't know to which side do you refer…"
Milosevic finally showed some mercy by moving to another question.
The second allegation, broadly presented by Babic throughout his testimony, was that the YU Army had been controlled and manipulated by Milosevic to clash with the Croats with no real reason, through a series of provocations by the local Serbs against the Croats, into which the Army would step in heavily. Babic underwent the same pattern: as soon as the specific, concrete things were described, the broad allegations evaporated. Milosevic listed the examples of Croatian attacks against the Army.
A transport helicopter trying to deliver food supplies to the Army barrack Promina blocked for months was shot down and the pilot Major Bukvic killed; barracks in Gospic blocked, without water and electricity, under fire, several soldiers and officers killed already the first day; the same happened throughout CRO; some small garrisons surrendered, soldiers were taken away without a trace or ended up in infamous Lora prison in Split; some tried to defend themselves (Major Tepic in Bjelovar, a posthumous hero, blew up a depot and himself when defence became impossible); many set out to de-block their barracks…
To this torrent of examples Babic tried to remain vague as he was when testifying: "I've heard there were some blockings, but I don't know the details." Milosevic ridiculed him: "All right, you were not even interested in the events, you were more like a passive observer back then." And again, by the end there came the most gruesome example: the infamous case of killing soldiers in Karlovac, on the bridge over Korana; Croats butchered dozens of unarmed soldiers by firstly shooting them in their legs, then cutting their throats; one saved himself by jumping into the river. This being a publicly known event, Babic meekly admitted the slaughter happened.
But Milosevic draw a full circle, briefly describing the bitter end of JNA in CRO: ceasefire negotiating (as the tape Tudjman-Kadijevic played the other day had shown), political decision to leave, long retreat under attacks, lootings, ambushed trains, killings… Thus, instead of unprovoked attacks of the JNA against the Croats, a totally opposite picture was revealed.
As soon as Milosevic would establish something and make Babic confirm this, the latter would back out over the following issue, trying to minimize the impact of ugly facts.
See this. Milosevic: "Already in 1991 there were more than 100,000 Serb refugees from Croatia who came to Serbia." Babic: "Yes, it was the first large Serb exodus, which coincided with the withdrawal of JNA from Western Slavonia." Milosevic: "There was an article in the 'New York Times' in 1993 talking about 10,000 mine-blasted Serb houses in Croatia, outside Krajina; Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granic admitted to only 7,000; there were whole families in Zadar blasted together with their houses.
Are you familiar with that?" Babic: "I know about the Zec family." [the notorious case in Zagreb, of a Serb family of four - father, mother, a teenage boy and a girl, abducted and brutally murdered by the Croat police, the event admitted even by Mesic] Milosevic: "So, you make 10,000 cases to come down to the Zec family, to this one tragic event?"
Babic even had the nerve to imply that those poor Medak Pocket villages were somehow to blame for their own fate, 'because there was not a full demilitarisation implemented'?! And to top it all, he 'explained' that "the way Franjo Tudjman made war in 1993 and 1995 was the same way of making war of JNA in 1990 and 1991 under your command".
Milosevic summarized things: "So, you are comparing road de-blocking done by the Army in Kijevo or Saborsko, when nobody got killed, with Medak Pocket and Operation Storm?" May lent a helping hand: "This is not a proper question." (?!)
[Sorry, have to run; will continue tomorrow.]
Vera Martinovic
Belgrade
Yugoslavia
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